For Immediate Release:August 21, 2001

SAN FRANCISCO - South African activists are suing their government today, demanding that it take urgent steps to reduce mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS.

"The Government of South Africa has the capacity to prevent HIV infection in 35,000 children a year," stated Karyn Kaplan, the HIV Program Coordinator of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC). "They can do this for free, and yet they refuse to act."

One of the most common methods of HIV transmission in children is from mother to child at and around birth. The South African government estimates that approximately 70,000 children are infected in this manner every year. A clinical study carried out in 1999-2000 in South Africa demonstrated that administering drugs during labor and in the first week following delivery could reduce mother to child transmission by more than 50%. The drug under study, Nevirapine, has been deemed so effective that the World Health Organization has placed it on its List of Essential Drugs. Nevirapine is also certified for use in South Africa and is available there in the private sector

The lawsuit demands that the South African government make Nevirapine available in the public health care system to HIV-positive pregnant women. The South African government could do so at no cost, since Boehringen Ingelheim, the drug manufacturer, has offered the drug free of charge to the South African government for a period of five years.

Today's suit is filed by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a South African grassroots organization dedicated to achieving affordable treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS and to preventing new HIV infections. For more information about the TAC please go to http://www.tac.org.za/
IGLHRC is a US-based non-profit, non-governmental organization that works to protect and advance the human rights of all people and communities subject to discrimination or abuse on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status.

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